Monday, March 05, 2007

Representatives of the English and American branches of the Perrotin family reunited in California last week after a century apart. Each had heard a different explanation for the loss of contact.

From the stories her great-aunt told her, Linda Tully of San Jose always assumed that her English cousins died in the bombing "blitz" during World War II. Jenny Murray of Gloucestershire, England, had been told that her cousins in the new world perished during an earthquake in Mexico.

So how did those stories get started?

Well, there were earthquakes in Mexico: But Tully says she's unaware they killed any of the family. And the closest Jenny Murray's family came to the "blitz" was that her father extinguished incendiary bombs dropped near his home some 100 miles west of London. [Link]